Yeah it was widely reported in the media that Chow got Ford to take on the cost of the Gardiner and DVP in exchange for Ontario Place. It was actually a pretty sweet deal for Toronto. The city got 8.8 billion in funding and operating support to stop fighting over something it was going to lose in court anyways.
The city didn't trade control, though. Chow knew the province could seize control whenever it wanted, just like this. She got Ford to trade funding for something he always had. Something for nothing.
Gardner is uploaded. Its the provinces issue now. A good bulk of commuters on it reside outside the city and do not pay toronto property taxes. It makes sense to share the cost of upkeep over the whole region.
True. Dope af driving through at night, super blade runner vibes in the rain.
Don valley is another world class city drive (if you aren’t just sitting there at one of the many choke points). Lush green scenery with the city poking up over the canopy as you roll through those wide winding roads.
Traffic sucks but visually there are a few gems.
I'm not sure it was a great deal. Toronto has significant issues with congestion as it is - allowing carte blanche at Ontario place from the province without a word of protest is a lot to give up. Especially since an alternative way to get the province to upload the Gardiner would have be to reopen the debate about tearing it down and voting to do so. Ford wouldn't have allowed that and his only option would have been to upload the Gardener.
Municipalities have no leverage over the province. There are dozens of ways he could have shut down that debate while still keeping the cost at the municipal level.
Give the corrupt man a sandbox and some toys to play with and you can distract him while the people who care about the city actually get to work to improve working class people's lives.
Except council would need to approve the vote to do so and support for that isn’t guaranteed. Progressives barely have half of council - Morley and other suburban progressives know tearing down the Gardiner means they’re guaranteed to loose their seat. It would never pass and we would have been stuck with the cost anyways.
The Supreme Court has already ruled the province can do whatever it wants to the city - including cutting council in half in the middle of an election, where various sections of the Charter were invoked. Of course it’s going to rule the province can stop the city from blocking a spa.
A transit line is going to Ontario place and the new deal gives the city billions to put into improving the rest of its infrastructure.
The only way to reduce congestion is for go transit service to improve, which is very difficult while GO is managed by the province and the province is led by Doug Ford.
Chow did basically agree to this, but there is a big caveat on that: Chow is the Mayor, but the Mayor isn't the same thing as the whole municipal government and its regulations and processes.
Chow's deal was a lot closer to "I won't actively fight you on Ontario Place stuff" than it was to directly permitting the province to do whatever it wants. (The mayor can't just let people do whatever they want, that's not in their power) so the province still has to either submit to the normal planning processes or invoke powers to sidestep them.
I don’t think that deal has anything to do with sidestepping council’s input on things related to it. That deal was just to cede a strip of Ontario Place that was owned by the city. And honestly if the provincial government constantly blocks the city’s ability to toll and monetize the Gardiner and DVP, they should be the ones to pay for it.
>A spokesperson for Therme said it was Ontario, and not the private company, that was handling the zoning and planning work for the project. That decision, they said, came after a deal between Ontario and Toronto that saw the city stand down its opposition to the project.
Stand down in its opposition doesn’t mean the opposition could be successful. Instead of fighting something that eventually would happen anyway, the city bypassed the losing battle and traded them not making things difficult for something they wanted. It was a smart move.
We just need people to go and shit in every hot tub and sauna every day when it opens. They’ll be issuing so many refunds, and people will just stop coming.
Fuck Ford & fuck the wanton destruction of our lakefront in service of a shitty unwanted parking lot and [putresecent](https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6631973) foreign spa. When do we take to the streets????
If you have to ask it’s not happening. Best we can do is a choice of a Fuck Ford bumpersticker and flag package or watching people staying home next election cycle.
Once again, Thermea has nothing to do with Therme, they are entirely separate companies with no relationship to each other. Perhaps you should do some minimal amount of research before you "take to the streets", you'll be far less likely to embarrass yourself and your family that way.
Thermea spa in Whitby has nothing to do with the new development at Ontario Place.
The Ontario place spa is owned by Austrian Therme group.
In addition, thermea had startup issues, addressed them publicly and corrected the issues, Thermea has been a huge asset to Whitby/Durham since
It’s getting built, that parts done. Now if nobody went to the spa via a boycott, it’ll make it pretty hard for Therme to make the business profitable.
Not gonna lie, the website with their plans for revitalization sound fantastic, including the 16-acre public park, new beach, gathering spaces, and new and improved shoreline... all of which are going to be free and open to the public.
I'm not sure if the people complaining have BEEN to Ontario Place recently, but it's mostly shit, bar a select few bits.
Because why should we give $600 million of taxpayer money to a European company to set up shop plus a 95-year lease which we have no details of? I wouldn’t even give the Leafs $600M for a new arena I’m not sure why you would be cool with this deal
We aren't actually giving them 600M.
Most of that figure is for the parking garage that will be used for everything at Ontario Place: Therme, Science Centre, and Bud Stage. (And probably overflow from Exhibition Place, at least during the CNE.) We'll finance the whole thing and pay it off out of parking revenue. I did some napkin math a while back and it should pay itself off in 30-40 years assuming the same parking rates as Exhibition Place. And that Therme isn't a huge failure.
The parking they were proposing was going to cost a few hundred million, and when you're looking at the time to recoup costs don't forget that underground parking costs a boatload in upkeep too. For one that size: easily a couple million a year just to keep it in decent shape.
Sure, the napkin math is that at $30/car and 2k cars a day you'd bring in $21M/year. Therme expects 10-15k visitors a day, OSC 3k, plus Bud Stage will get 9-20k for concerts. Even if you only average 1.5k it's 15M/year. Over 40 years that's 600M.
Let's for the sake of argument pretend it's reasonable there'd be a daily average of 2000 cars in a 2000 car lot:
Over 40 years, using condo underground parking fees as a cost estimation, you'll attract 96 million in upkeep costs. (100 per spot per month) So if the province dropped 500 million on the garage it'd take just about 40 years to break even.
But of course it's not like the province is just dropping a 500 million dollar lump sum, it's almost definitely taking on debt and paying it over time. What's the carrying cost of the debt? To carry a 500 million dollar princpal and see it paid off in 40 years at a even a measly 2% interest rate you're paying out about 226 million in interest. A full ~30% interest over ally going to be cashflow negative over those 40 years - it'll have to either take on even more debt to cover the interest payments, or else defund other programs to make up the difference.
To provide 2000 parking spaces in Toronto for private venues.
Oh, but maybe the province can save on the interest and actually do a lump-sum payment? What's the opportunity cost then? If you just drop 500 million into incredibly boring and safe investments expected a very conservative 3% annual return: that's 1.6 billion you'll have at the end of a 40 year term. The opportunity cost of the lump sum payment even relative to an incredibly safe alternative is 1.1 billion dollars in lost gains.
With 2700 spaces and 10-15k visitors to the site every day (and maybe double that on concert days), I really don't think that averaging 2000 parked cars is unrealistic. Especially since concerts would mostly start hours after OSC closes so you can double dip.
600M over 40 years would be 1500 cars a day, 15M a year. 2000 a day would be more like 840M over 40 years. (2k a day, 350 operating days, $30/car). That would cover the 826M napkin math. And realistically those rates will go up over time, e.g. It'll be $40+ in 20 years. To your point about financing, even if we're in the red early on we should be in the black overall.
As real points of comparison, Exhibition Place makes around 5M in parking revenue in a year, without having year round attractions (other than Medieval Times). Ontario Place made 3.3M on parking in 2019 (nothing newer online than 2021). 21M/year shouldn't be a stretch with three year round attractions instead of one summer-only attraction and CNE overflow.
> That would cover the 826M napkin math... even if we're in the red early on we should be in the black overall.
To clarify: in the red for many decades, and net negative cashflow for a couple decades too. So: you're paying a huge amount, have to keep paying even more because your revenues aren't enough to cover the interest for a good while up front, and if you're lucky your infant today will only be middle-aged by the time it evens out.
That's an abysmal ROI. If it wasn't Therme or other private entities would be chomping at the bit to own it instead.
> And realistically those rates will go up over time, e.g. It'll be $40+ in 20 years.
Yeah, and so will the cost of upkeep and other attendant costs.
2000 parking spaces for private venues in Toronto is worthless compared against what else the province could do with the same amount of investment. Maybe build a load of public housing and ease the housing crisis, or throw it at family doctors so people can get basic medical care in a timely manner. Give it as endowments to food banks - they can buy a lot of food in perpetuity for the needy that way. Use it to expand transit access to Ontario place, especially GO access so it's more accessible to the surrounding areas and not just Toronto. Also massively improves the situation for all the people wanting to attend events.
I wasn't saying it's a good ROI, I said it should pay for itself and not be a net drain on the Treasury. If they're making 21M a year or more it'll be cash flow positive. And if Therme hits their conservative projections that will happen pretty quickly. If not we'll lose a few million a year and make it back later. That's the worst likely case. Unless Therme fails it'll cost us nothing in the end.
Your alternatives are basically a bunch of ways that we could spend 500M if we had that money and didn't have to pay it back. Obviously spending 500M today will have more impact than spending 0M. But then where does the 700M to pay off that extra debt come from?
The other things spur the economy and/or reduce later expenses. If you put 500 million into preventative medicine, for example, you could absolutely save more than that in healthcare expenditures long-term. Endowments to food banks provide a 'renewable' supply of donations in the form of investment yields that go straight to charity. Better transit stimulates economies, and is a critical way to reduce the kind of traffic and car dependence that leads to incredibly expensive highways, parking garages, and the like seeming reasonable - transit moves more people for less money, but we need better transit to make it viable for more people. Build public housing and you can get direct income in the form of rents as well as alleviating social ills that end up costing loads of money elsewhere.
Well, considering the gov at all levels loves to throw money around without your consideration, at least this way, we get something out of it.
What would you suggest as a fiesable alternative?
Let’s be real do you think it’s worth $600M of taxpayer money to build a spa? I’m all for fixing up Ontario Place but I need it not to cost that much when there are so many better ways it can be spent… like maybe overtime so it doesn’t take 3 years to fix a section of the Gardiner
this is exactly like expecting a perfect burger from photo on the menu and what you get are stale bread tiny meat few shreds of lettuce and no cheese. the final product will be nothing like what they advertised.
You know, I sometimes feel like half (if not more) of the opposition to this isn't against the idea itself, but rather the government that's implementing it. I'm still convinced that, even if they don't use the waterpark or spa, like 90% of the naysayers will still enjoy the public park and beach features of the west island once it's done.
Dude, they are spending at minimum 600 million of taxpayer funds for the benefit of a private for profit foreign companies. Building them a parking costing over half a billion dollars, plus land development. And knowing our governments, this process will likely cost up to a billion once it's all said and done, with developer delays, and pocketing money.
600m to 1b Canadian dollars can do a lot of good for Toronto, especially as we are experiencing a housing and cost of living crisis. Moreover, the 99 year lease is honestly criminal, just like the 407.
If you can see all this is insane, you need to really expand your perspective.
>Dude, they are spending at minimum 600 million of taxpayer funds for the benefit of a private for profit foreign companies. Building them a parking costing over half a billion dollars, plus land development. And knowing our governments, this process will likely cost up to a billion once it's all said and done, with developer delays, and pocketing money.
All of which I disagree with, but lets not pretend people weren't against it just the same before any of this information was available. Everything you mentioned came to light post opposition.
I hate to contradict your feelings based assessment of the situation. But only one Ontario political party (Conservatives) keeps giving away public property to private foreign companies in 100 year leases. That’s what most (if not more) of the opposition to this corrupt land deal is about
How does "It's not because of which party, it's that everytime this happens it's always the same party" turn into "I only don't like it because it's this specific party"?
...Yes, that's exactly the logic I'm asking you to think about. Explain how those two things are the same to you. Do you not understand the role of agency between those two statements?
In both cases the problem isn't the project it's the party. That's all I was saying, that people are objecting to this project, not *because* of the project, but because of the party backing it.
No, you're falsely equivocating the two statements. Nobody has said they hate it because of the party. You're misattributing the project being hated to hating the party instead of acknowledging that only one party ever engages in such projects and that's why they get all the complaints about such projects.
Your takeaway should be that the project is hated and only one party ever does them. It should not be that the project is only hated because of who is behind it.
If you want to talk logic, look up slothful induction.
Your logic falls apart when you have people yelling about the Ford government and how bad Thermea in Whitby is when they have no relation in the slightest.
Don't get me wrong though, I'm fully aware that there are a group of people who have done their research on the project and dislike it, we regularly discuss the topic in the various threads on it, but that's the vast, *vast* minority of the people who comment on this development.
Just look at the comments here, 90% are some equivalent of "Ford bad", the project has no relevance in their eyes, it's just "this is a Ford project, ergo it's bad".
> Your logic falls apart when you have people yelling about the Ford government and how bad Thermea in Whitby is when they have no relation in the slightest.
Nobody above did that.
Even if that were true, which imo it is not, I wouldn't blame anybody that is against it purely because they don't trust Stag and Doe Ford to be a good steward of public land.
I am the only person excited for the waterslides. I get it, would have been nice to have more public spaces available to everyone. But we also need more indoor attractions. My kids are going to love it.
But Trudeau is a dictator! smh
Mafia gotta mafioso
Not enough people remember how Doug and Rob performed around City Council: https://youtu.be/i6JLHDXb894?si=NO1sItMqZYztsms3
Not sure why the article omits the fact that Olivia Chow agreed to this….
Yeah it was widely reported in the media that Chow got Ford to take on the cost of the Gardiner and DVP in exchange for Ontario Place. It was actually a pretty sweet deal for Toronto. The city got 8.8 billion in funding and operating support to stop fighting over something it was going to lose in court anyways.
Or to put it another way, the city traded control of the development for a promise of future funding.
The city didn't trade control, though. Chow knew the province could seize control whenever it wanted, just like this. She got Ford to trade funding for something he always had. Something for nothing.
Minimized the losses - Pretty sweet chess move
Gardner is uploaded. Its the provinces issue now. A good bulk of commuters on it reside outside the city and do not pay toronto property taxes. It makes sense to share the cost of upkeep over the whole region.
I've lived in Toronto for a year and a half now. I've been on the Gardiner a total of two times so far.
Driving the gardiner through the core is one of the great city drives anywhere in the world.
Its better when youre in traffic. Otherwise the view is gone as fast as the ecplise
True. Dope af driving through at night, super blade runner vibes in the rain. Don valley is another world class city drive (if you aren’t just sitting there at one of the many choke points). Lush green scenery with the city poking up over the canopy as you roll through those wide winding roads. Traffic sucks but visually there are a few gems.
It is very nice when you arrive in town and see all the buildings imposing. It's always a bit impressive
The cost of what, they haven't done shit to either the DVP or the Gardiner ... It hasn't expanded, it hadn't changed in anyway... What is the cost?
I'm not sure it was a great deal. Toronto has significant issues with congestion as it is - allowing carte blanche at Ontario place from the province without a word of protest is a lot to give up. Especially since an alternative way to get the province to upload the Gardiner would have be to reopen the debate about tearing it down and voting to do so. Ford wouldn't have allowed that and his only option would have been to upload the Gardener.
It was going to happen either way. At least Toronto gets something out of the deal instead of having to also foot the 8 billion Gardner deal.
Municipalities have no leverage over the province. There are dozens of ways he could have shut down that debate while still keeping the cost at the municipal level.
Give the corrupt man a sandbox and some toys to play with and you can distract him while the people who care about the city actually get to work to improve working class people's lives.
Except council would need to approve the vote to do so and support for that isn’t guaranteed. Progressives barely have half of council - Morley and other suburban progressives know tearing down the Gardiner means they’re guaranteed to loose their seat. It would never pass and we would have been stuck with the cost anyways. The Supreme Court has already ruled the province can do whatever it wants to the city - including cutting council in half in the middle of an election, where various sections of the Charter were invoked. Of course it’s going to rule the province can stop the city from blocking a spa. A transit line is going to Ontario place and the new deal gives the city billions to put into improving the rest of its infrastructure.
The only way to reduce congestion is for go transit service to improve, which is very difficult while GO is managed by the province and the province is led by Doug Ford.
City foots the bill, the private guys get what they wanted
Chow did basically agree to this, but there is a big caveat on that: Chow is the Mayor, but the Mayor isn't the same thing as the whole municipal government and its regulations and processes. Chow's deal was a lot closer to "I won't actively fight you on Ontario Place stuff" than it was to directly permitting the province to do whatever it wants. (The mayor can't just let people do whatever they want, that's not in their power) so the province still has to either submit to the normal planning processes or invoke powers to sidestep them.
I don’t think that deal has anything to do with sidestepping council’s input on things related to it. That deal was just to cede a strip of Ontario Place that was owned by the city. And honestly if the provincial government constantly blocks the city’s ability to toll and monetize the Gardiner and DVP, they should be the ones to pay for it.
>A spokesperson for Therme said it was Ontario, and not the private company, that was handling the zoning and planning work for the project. That decision, they said, came after a deal between Ontario and Toronto that saw the city stand down its opposition to the project.
That doesn’t completely cover it, plus it doesn’t match the headline of the article.
Stand down in its opposition doesn’t mean the opposition could be successful. Instead of fighting something that eventually would happen anyway, the city bypassed the losing battle and traded them not making things difficult for something they wanted. It was a smart move.
*Dougie cackles with glee as Kinga tosses his salad.*
What a horrible day to be literate.
Lmaoooo
MY EYES!
Why you have to write this?
Thanks! I hate it!
*no*
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We just need people to go and shit in every hot tub and sauna every day when it opens. They’ll be issuing so many refunds, and people will just stop coming.
"I wouldn't be opposed to committing a crime because I don't like something".
Fuck Ford & fuck the wanton destruction of our lakefront in service of a shitty unwanted parking lot and [putresecent](https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6631973) foreign spa. When do we take to the streets????
If you have to ask it’s not happening. Best we can do is a choice of a Fuck Ford bumpersticker and flag package or watching people staying home next election cycle.
> destruction of our lakefront in service of a shitty unwanted parking lot Wasn't the plan for the parking lot to go where the current parking lot is?
Once again, Thermea has nothing to do with Therme, they are entirely separate companies with no relationship to each other. Perhaps you should do some minimal amount of research before you "take to the streets", you'll be far less likely to embarrass yourself and your family that way.
Just ignore the tens of private condos along the waterfront too, eh?
Thermea spa in Whitby has nothing to do with the new development at Ontario Place. The Ontario place spa is owned by Austrian Therme group. In addition, thermea had startup issues, addressed them publicly and corrected the issues, Thermea has been a huge asset to Whitby/Durham since
The therme shills have started. Just like Metrolinx. Jesus do they have a division over at Ford Co HQ to watch Reddit?
It’s getting built, that parts done. Now if nobody went to the spa via a boycott, it’ll make it pretty hard for Therme to make the business profitable.
Plans look exciting, can’t wait!
Not gonna lie, the website with their plans for revitalization sound fantastic, including the 16-acre public park, new beach, gathering spaces, and new and improved shoreline... all of which are going to be free and open to the public. I'm not sure if the people complaining have BEEN to Ontario Place recently, but it's mostly shit, bar a select few bits.
Because why should we give $600 million of taxpayer money to a European company to set up shop plus a 95-year lease which we have no details of? I wouldn’t even give the Leafs $600M for a new arena I’m not sure why you would be cool with this deal
We aren't actually giving them 600M. Most of that figure is for the parking garage that will be used for everything at Ontario Place: Therme, Science Centre, and Bud Stage. (And probably overflow from Exhibition Place, at least during the CNE.) We'll finance the whole thing and pay it off out of parking revenue. I did some napkin math a while back and it should pay itself off in 30-40 years assuming the same parking rates as Exhibition Place. And that Therme isn't a huge failure.
The parking they were proposing was going to cost a few hundred million, and when you're looking at the time to recoup costs don't forget that underground parking costs a boatload in upkeep too. For one that size: easily a couple million a year just to keep it in decent shape.
Sure, the napkin math is that at $30/car and 2k cars a day you'd bring in $21M/year. Therme expects 10-15k visitors a day, OSC 3k, plus Bud Stage will get 9-20k for concerts. Even if you only average 1.5k it's 15M/year. Over 40 years that's 600M.
Let's for the sake of argument pretend it's reasonable there'd be a daily average of 2000 cars in a 2000 car lot: Over 40 years, using condo underground parking fees as a cost estimation, you'll attract 96 million in upkeep costs. (100 per spot per month) So if the province dropped 500 million on the garage it'd take just about 40 years to break even. But of course it's not like the province is just dropping a 500 million dollar lump sum, it's almost definitely taking on debt and paying it over time. What's the carrying cost of the debt? To carry a 500 million dollar princpal and see it paid off in 40 years at a even a measly 2% interest rate you're paying out about 226 million in interest. A full ~30% interest over ally going to be cashflow negative over those 40 years - it'll have to either take on even more debt to cover the interest payments, or else defund other programs to make up the difference. To provide 2000 parking spaces in Toronto for private venues. Oh, but maybe the province can save on the interest and actually do a lump-sum payment? What's the opportunity cost then? If you just drop 500 million into incredibly boring and safe investments expected a very conservative 3% annual return: that's 1.6 billion you'll have at the end of a 40 year term. The opportunity cost of the lump sum payment even relative to an incredibly safe alternative is 1.1 billion dollars in lost gains.
With 2700 spaces and 10-15k visitors to the site every day (and maybe double that on concert days), I really don't think that averaging 2000 parked cars is unrealistic. Especially since concerts would mostly start hours after OSC closes so you can double dip. 600M over 40 years would be 1500 cars a day, 15M a year. 2000 a day would be more like 840M over 40 years. (2k a day, 350 operating days, $30/car). That would cover the 826M napkin math. And realistically those rates will go up over time, e.g. It'll be $40+ in 20 years. To your point about financing, even if we're in the red early on we should be in the black overall. As real points of comparison, Exhibition Place makes around 5M in parking revenue in a year, without having year round attractions (other than Medieval Times). Ontario Place made 3.3M on parking in 2019 (nothing newer online than 2021). 21M/year shouldn't be a stretch with three year round attractions instead of one summer-only attraction and CNE overflow.
> That would cover the 826M napkin math... even if we're in the red early on we should be in the black overall. To clarify: in the red for many decades, and net negative cashflow for a couple decades too. So: you're paying a huge amount, have to keep paying even more because your revenues aren't enough to cover the interest for a good while up front, and if you're lucky your infant today will only be middle-aged by the time it evens out. That's an abysmal ROI. If it wasn't Therme or other private entities would be chomping at the bit to own it instead. > And realistically those rates will go up over time, e.g. It'll be $40+ in 20 years. Yeah, and so will the cost of upkeep and other attendant costs. 2000 parking spaces for private venues in Toronto is worthless compared against what else the province could do with the same amount of investment. Maybe build a load of public housing and ease the housing crisis, or throw it at family doctors so people can get basic medical care in a timely manner. Give it as endowments to food banks - they can buy a lot of food in perpetuity for the needy that way. Use it to expand transit access to Ontario place, especially GO access so it's more accessible to the surrounding areas and not just Toronto. Also massively improves the situation for all the people wanting to attend events.
I wasn't saying it's a good ROI, I said it should pay for itself and not be a net drain on the Treasury. If they're making 21M a year or more it'll be cash flow positive. And if Therme hits their conservative projections that will happen pretty quickly. If not we'll lose a few million a year and make it back later. That's the worst likely case. Unless Therme fails it'll cost us nothing in the end. Your alternatives are basically a bunch of ways that we could spend 500M if we had that money and didn't have to pay it back. Obviously spending 500M today will have more impact than spending 0M. But then where does the 700M to pay off that extra debt come from?
The other things spur the economy and/or reduce later expenses. If you put 500 million into preventative medicine, for example, you could absolutely save more than that in healthcare expenditures long-term. Endowments to food banks provide a 'renewable' supply of donations in the form of investment yields that go straight to charity. Better transit stimulates economies, and is a critical way to reduce the kind of traffic and car dependence that leads to incredibly expensive highways, parking garages, and the like seeming reasonable - transit moves more people for less money, but we need better transit to make it viable for more people. Build public housing and you can get direct income in the form of rents as well as alleviating social ills that end up costing loads of money elsewhere.
Well, considering the gov at all levels loves to throw money around without your consideration, at least this way, we get something out of it. What would you suggest as a fiesable alternative?
Let’s be real do you think it’s worth $600M of taxpayer money to build a spa? I’m all for fixing up Ontario Place but I need it not to cost that much when there are so many better ways it can be spent… like maybe overtime so it doesn’t take 3 years to fix a section of the Gardiner
Its not just a spa for that cost. Lots of infrastructure and development
Lol there's no way any real person thinks like this
Thanks for the post, very helpful
Do we get something out of it? I'm not getting a free pass and I can assume most Torontonians won't get any either.
Toronto isn't paying for it and Toronto doesn't own the land, I'm not sure why you think Toronto in specific should get anything out of it?
If it's not free then no one will get anything out of it?
You get what i listed above. For free
"New beach" == concrete retaining wall put up in place of the best swimming beach on the whole waterfront. RIP pebble beach :(
Man I hope we still have pebble beach. This is where I proposed to my wife a couple years ago :(
I doubt that very much, as a beach is not the same as water front
this is exactly like expecting a perfect burger from photo on the menu and what you get are stale bread tiny meat few shreds of lettuce and no cheese. the final product will be nothing like what they advertised.
I will wait and withold judgment. It could very well be a shit hole, youre right
My main concern is the science centre. Do whatever to ontario place, just leave the science centre as is
I agree
You must have tried all the Therme spas in Europe to be this excited for one to come to Toronto! A real superfan!
Never been, never will go. I will, however, use the newly developed public spaces
For someone who doesn't live in Toronto, how often do you think that will be, honestly?
Maybe a handful of times in a year, if that, on average.
Most people that complain about something have no experience with it.
Very clearly! I am excited for this to be completed!
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Yay! You and me both
You know, I sometimes feel like half (if not more) of the opposition to this isn't against the idea itself, but rather the government that's implementing it. I'm still convinced that, even if they don't use the waterpark or spa, like 90% of the naysayers will still enjoy the public park and beach features of the west island once it's done.
Dude, they are spending at minimum 600 million of taxpayer funds for the benefit of a private for profit foreign companies. Building them a parking costing over half a billion dollars, plus land development. And knowing our governments, this process will likely cost up to a billion once it's all said and done, with developer delays, and pocketing money. 600m to 1b Canadian dollars can do a lot of good for Toronto, especially as we are experiencing a housing and cost of living crisis. Moreover, the 99 year lease is honestly criminal, just like the 407. If you can see all this is insane, you need to really expand your perspective.
Plus all the secrecy and using MZOs etc. Dodgy process because it's a dodgy deal.
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>Dude, they are spending at minimum 600 million of taxpayer funds for the benefit of a private for profit foreign companies. Building them a parking costing over half a billion dollars, plus land development. And knowing our governments, this process will likely cost up to a billion once it's all said and done, with developer delays, and pocketing money. All of which I disagree with, but lets not pretend people weren't against it just the same before any of this information was available. Everything you mentioned came to light post opposition.
I hate to contradict your feelings based assessment of the situation. But only one Ontario political party (Conservatives) keeps giving away public property to private foreign companies in 100 year leases. That’s what most (if not more) of the opposition to this corrupt land deal is about
I mean, you just kind of proved my point. For you it's clearly an issue with the political party more than the development itself.
How does "It's not because of which party, it's that everytime this happens it's always the same party" turn into "I only don't like it because it's this specific party"?
What? Buddy, think about your logic here. You just said "It's not because of a specific party, it's just this specific party always does it".
...Yes, that's exactly the logic I'm asking you to think about. Explain how those two things are the same to you. Do you not understand the role of agency between those two statements?
In both cases the problem isn't the project it's the party. That's all I was saying, that people are objecting to this project, not *because* of the project, but because of the party backing it.
No, you're falsely equivocating the two statements. Nobody has said they hate it because of the party. You're misattributing the project being hated to hating the party instead of acknowledging that only one party ever engages in such projects and that's why they get all the complaints about such projects. Your takeaway should be that the project is hated and only one party ever does them. It should not be that the project is only hated because of who is behind it. If you want to talk logic, look up slothful induction.
Your logic falls apart when you have people yelling about the Ford government and how bad Thermea in Whitby is when they have no relation in the slightest. Don't get me wrong though, I'm fully aware that there are a group of people who have done their research on the project and dislike it, we regularly discuss the topic in the various threads on it, but that's the vast, *vast* minority of the people who comment on this development. Just look at the comments here, 90% are some equivalent of "Ford bad", the project has no relevance in their eyes, it's just "this is a Ford project, ergo it's bad".
> Your logic falls apart when you have people yelling about the Ford government and how bad Thermea in Whitby is when they have no relation in the slightest. Nobody above did that.
Even if that were true, which imo it is not, I wouldn't blame anybody that is against it purely because they don't trust Stag and Doe Ford to be a good steward of public land.
I am the only person excited for the waterslides. I get it, would have been nice to have more public spaces available to everyone. But we also need more indoor attractions. My kids are going to love it.